Why do we recycle?Energy, Economy and Environment: The Three 'E's

By choosing to recycle, we reduce fossil fuel demand, create jobs in Minnesota, conserve natural resources and benefit the environment in innumerable ways. Great news for Minnesota's citizens, businesses and wildlife!

RockTenn Co. in St. Paul, just one of the dozens of companies around Minnesota creating jobs and profits by creating new products from recycled materials.

Recycling saves energy.

Manufacturing products from recycled materials uses far less energy than manufacturing the same product from virgin (new) materials. It takes 90% less energy to manufacture an aluminum can from recycled aluminum. Recycled glass? About 50% less energy. Recycled paper? About 75% less energy. Recycling thus decreases our demand for fossil fuels and increases our energy independence.

Recycled materials are used by many Minnesota companies because they can be manufactured into a variety of products, from recycled content paper to building supplies.

Recycling benefits our economy.

Recycling helps support local markets and businesses statewide. And that's not just a warm fuzzy feeling, it's a fact backed up with cold, hard cash.

Recycling creates jobs: approximately 37,000 jobs in Minnesota are directly and indirectly supported by the industry. These jobs pay an estimated $1.96 billion in wages and add nearly $8.5 billion to Minnesota's economy.

Not recycling costs money: Another 1.2 million tons of recyclable material was thrown away, but could easily have been recycled for an additional estimated value of $285 million dollars. Instead, it cost Minnesota over $200 million to throw it away into landfills.

“Recycling strengthens our environment and creates jobs in Minnesota. Our waste is a resource because it has economic and environmental value.”

- MPCA Biennial Report to the Legislature

Recycling protects our environment.

You now know that recycling reduces energy use. This also means recycling directly decreases greenhouse gas emissions and reduces Minnesota’s carbon footprint. Not only that, recycling has indirect benefits to climate change as well -- take paper recycling, for instance. Each mature tree we don't cut down can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants and carbon dioxide out of our air each year.

Recycling and buying recycled products helps keep Minnesota's lakes and rivers clean. Manufacturing products from recycled materials generates significantly less water pollution than manufacturing from virgin (new) materials. Manufacturing recycled white office paper creates 74% less air pollutants and 35% less water pollutants than making it from virgin (new) wood pulp.

And of course, using recycled materials to manufacture products conserves natural resources, such as water and timber. Environmentally, the impact of recycling is exponential.